When the race car driver Aurora Straus first began competing professionally aged 16, she was the only female racer on the tracks in North America. Unsurprisingly, her entry into the male-dominated world of motorsports was not without its sexist challenges. In one incident, while she was being filmed for a documentary, she returned to her car with a camera crew in tow, to find a surprise.
“I was doing an interview for this movie,” Straus recalls, “and I went to show them my car. When I opened the door, there was a dildo in there.”
While she shrugged off the incident as another example of the hazing typical in professional racing, Straus says she immediately understood the implications. There were no other women to turn to for support and if she complained she knew she’d be marked as a “diva”.
Straus also lacked basic things that most men in the field took for granted such as a dressing room. For most of her career, Straus has had to get dressed alongside the men.
Even though only 4% of professional racers are female, Straus believes that the sport is changing for the better. She sees #MeToo as having catalyzed important conversations about misogynistic treatment of female racers, and she sees more women competing. Straus’s success has contributed to transforming the race track for the girls and young women who she now mentors.
“When these sorts of things happened to me, I took the attitude that it’s important to fit in,” she says. “But as I’ve helped more women and girls get into the industry, my perspective has changed. I would flip my shit if [the dildo incident] happened to one of the 17-year-old girls I’m training now. That would not go well for anyone. People would be blacklisted.”
Now 26, Straus has packed a lot in since her first driving experience with her “car nut” father 13 years ago. A graduate of Harvard with a double major in English literature and mechanical engineering, Straus is also a folk musician who regularly performs. While she was still at university, Straus started the non-profit Girls with Drive to help young women find careers in Stem.
Straus’s latest effort to make motorsports more welcoming to women is the Dart car initiative (Driven Artist Racing Team). It debuted at the Sonoma Raceway in California in March, securing an impressive fourth-place finish in a competitive field. Straus raced in tandem with Zoë Barry, an entrepreneur turned racer who handles the venture’s business affairs; they were accompanied by Spring McManus, who leads Dart Car’s artistic initiatives.
Straus’s venture isn’t just a matter of proving that women can race just as well as men – by auctioning her car at the end of each season, she hopes to bring more funding to materially help young female racers get a foothold in this cutthroat world. “I can’t tell you how many programs I’ve been a part of where everyone talks about how great it would be to invest in women in motorsports,” she says, “but when it comes to actually writing checks for female go-karters or race car drivers, it’s a lot harder to get that over the finish line.”
In order to make Dart Car more noticeable – and auctionable – Straus has tapped the African American artist Mickalene Thomas to design the vehicle’s exterior, as well as Straus’s racing suit.
The collaboration between Straus and Thomas is what’s known as an art car, a genre of vehicle that has a long and celebrated history in competitive racing. Straus’s vehicle has been adorned with the number 44 in homage to the fact that only 4% of race drivers are women, and that women also only make up 4% of the art sold in auction houses. Straus hopes that by collaborating with game-changing female artists, her art cars can help shake up both worlds.
Thomas’s background also points to another diversity deficit in professional motorsports and something Straus hopes to help change.
“It’s hilarious that I’m the supposed diversity play in racing,” Straus says. “I’m a white girl from New York, I’m not the diversity play. It’s really not very common at all to have people of color represented in sports car racing.” She hopes to mentor racers of color, and help bring in groups typically left out of motorsports.
Dart Car is intentionally female-forward – the vehicle is dominated by pinks and mauves, while featuring an enormous eye with long, sinuous lashes, plus bright, zebra-print colors. Straus’s racing suit is similarly adorned, and her helmet is glitzy. “I’ve never had a race car or helmet that’s been so feminine,” she enthuses. “I have a helmet that’s covered in crystals, huge lips on the front, eyelashes!”
At the Sonoma Raceway, the reaction was positive. “I’ve never had so many women come up to me and say: ‘Oh my God! I love that car! That helmet is so cool!’” Straus says. “I’ve never had anyone say: ‘I love your suit!’
Aesthetics aside, Straus’s main aspiration remains one of gender equality in motorsports, to prove that women can race “hand in hand” with men.
“I think women are better at weighing the risks and rewards, racing requires a lot more than guts,” she says. “I’ve found that not having testosterone poisoning helps with that … a lot of male drivers can be assholes, but on the other side, we do teach women to doubt themselves. I mean, I’m still dealing with imposter syndrome 10 years later.”